A Hero's Journey
by Fleet of the Wind
Summary: She can't speak and he can't remember. Somehow, they'll have to make the Journey together.
1. The Call

**-/\-**

**-JOURNEY-  
****_-_**_Fleet of the Wind__**-**_

**-/-\-**

Bruce opened his eyes and the sun was shining down, too harsh and white to be comfortable against what had been closed eyes. He raised a hand to cast a shadow over his face, squinting to peer up at a pale blue sky. The tips of vibrantly green trees danced and swayed about the edges of his vision like flowing ocean, rippling and swaying against a light sky. It took several seconds for Bruce to wrap his mind around what he was seeing, mind-numbing disorientation making anything but trying to process the scene than anything else. The ground under him was hard and edged with small rocks, and long green grass pricked at the edge of his face when he shifted. It far longer than it should've for Bruce to realize that he was lying down.

Upon coming to this brilliant conclusion, the doctor slowly sat up; running a hand back through his tangled and longer than he last remembered brown hair. He gazed around and down, both relieved and confused at the same time to realize he hadn't torn his clothes (laced, mid-shin high worn boots, dark leathery brown pants, a loose white shirt, and, most noticeably a dark green cloak—nothing he recognized) because, for one perfect second, he remembered everything and knew what waking up with the absence of clothes meant.

But then, just as quickly as before, and just like that, he forgot.

The trees ceased to be familiar, the cause for his relief vanished, and he was left scrambling for thoughts and half formed questions that he couldn't remember.

_Where is—?_

_What's my flaw this—?_

_Are we—?_

_Did—?_

And more slowly, as these thoughts fought for control and something twisted violently inside his chest, some emotion that he couldn't place.

…_where am I?_

His name was Robert Bruce Banner, he was forty years old, a doctor (for what?), they called him Bruce (who is they?), and that was all he knew.

_For what?_

_Who are they?_

…who were _we_ for that matter?He had just been thinking '_we'_ a few seconds ago, hadn't he?

Hadn't he?

He was certain he had.

Then something inside his head glitched again and he forgot that too, staring up in a blatant confusion at the pale sky. There were no clouds, no birds, and he couldn't see the sun even though the sky was still such a pale bluish white. Slowly, Bruce pushed himself off the thick grassy forest floor he had been lying blissfully unaware just moments ago, already having forgotten the first signs of remembering.

Banner. His name was Bruce Banner. His name, at least, was something he would never forget.

Why was he forgetting in the first place?

There was a sharp brittle crack of breaking leaves and wood and Bruce startled, whirling around behind him towards the noise. In its wake, a white rabbit darted from its spot where it had previously stood frozen still and took off through the thick green brush on the left side of the clearing. Bruce watched it go, eyes following it as it dashed off into the forest, before shakily getting his legs under him and standing.

_Where am I?_

_What is this place?_

Bruce turned, looking straight up through the break large in the tall forest's trees. No sun—not one he could see anyways. He dropped his head, peering around through the tree breaks and saw nothing beyond the last flash of white from the fleeing rabbit. He was in a forest then. He didn't know the time, or which forest in this huge world he was in— world. World being Earth. He knew that and Bruce waited with an almost painful hesitation a long few seconds before the thought stuck in his head and he didn't forget that too.

He was Bruce Banner, he was a doctor, he was forty years old, and he was (probably) in a forest on Earth. The trees were undeniably strange looking, some with pale white bark crisscrossed with gray feline stripes and soft green leaves that looked like tulips. Others were dark-brown to the point of black and even from this distance the wood looked a cool smooth, darker colored leaves sending him reeling for a biome, a place, to match the trees to. He knew the world and these trees were just subtly different for him to not be able to come up with a place to narrow down where he might be. He knew that. He knew the world.

His name was Bruce Banner, he was a doctor (for what?), he was forty years old, he was (maybe) in a forest on Earth (but why or how could he be anyplace else?), and he knew many things about the world and things in it but nothing else about himself.

He was a doctor. He should've been able to figure this out. Why did he know so much (he could feel it circling, brewing in the back of his mind, waiting to be called upon) about everything else, but when he tried to remember something about him (his family, his friends, where he lived, where he was yesterday) he couldn't? His brain supplied the term amnesia but that didn't make any sense either, because he was almost positive he didn't have a head-wound or—or a disease that would cause that. He felt perfectly fine, even a bit… rested, as strange as that sounded. He checked the back of his head, running a hand tentatively through his hair, just to be sure, and again after that because he didn't trust himself. But the rundown only confirmed what he already know—that there was nothing there that shouldn't have been there. The only remaining cause would be a traumatic event, something his brain decided he would rather just forget than deal with, but—but that wouldn't make sense either because the memory-loss would be more selective, more about the specific event rather than _his entire life. _

Forty years old and he couldn't remember a second of it. That just didn't make _sense_. The—the cause would have had to be something else then. Medically induced, maybe? He checked himself over, coarse hands running over smooth skin. No soreness, puncture marks, bruises where IV lines would've been—maybe it was a medicine he consumed? No, no—he was sure, he racked his brain and he found nothing, no remembrance in the medical field over experiments, over _anything_ that could've caused this.

It wasn't a head wound, it wasn't a traumatic event, it wasn't some medical procedure or disease, so then—then it would have to be—

His arm suddenly tingled in pain after he fiddled with his hands and Bruce suddenly looked down at his left wrist. He was surprised to find three long scratch marks there, shallow, wide and a deep crusted red and running down his middle forearm to halfway up his palm. They were warm and tingling, only a few hours old, and he looked down at them in interest, a clue, a puzzle, a mystery to—

There was a bellowing sound, a rumbling roar that made the earth shakes, the vibrations rising up from the ground where his booted feet were unsteadily planted. The sound passed through him, a deep rattling hum that shook him down to his very core. Bruce nearly flailed, trying to catch his balance though the earth didn't really tremble all that violently. It was more the surprise, the alarm that caused something to growl in the back of his mind. It was the complete familiarity yet at the same time completely foreign element to the sound that threw him. For some reason it scared him even if the sound wasn't that bad of one to start with. It was strangely melodic like a low sound of a singing bird or the swell of wind in the trees, and without really knowing what he was doing or planning, Bruce started to run.

He was tearing through the trees, the thick and velvety green cloak he'd woken to find on his shoulders surprisingly light. His feet knew exactly where to place one after another to avoid a root here swerving left there to avoid a section of bushes that he somehow knew were there and he just ran. The sound intensified, crescendoed, and was joined by another to form a harmony to the original song. They both grew louder and louder and _louder _above him as the trees thinned out, white, green, blues and grays. Finally, he broke through the line of trees with a leap and kept running as the world opened up before him and—Bruce suddenly pulled on the breaks, feet scrambling for purchase on the sudden smooth stone, arms jerking backwards and cloak flying in the sudden wind. His feet scrambled for purchase on the edge of the huge cliff and just in the nick of time he stopped.

But none of it mattered. Nothing mattered. Nothing mattered because here the sounds were the loudest they could be and Bruce looked out, gazed out over the spray of water and light reflected across shattered glass and rainbows from a waterfall just to his left, and just stared.

Just in front of him, flying through the sky with no water in sight as if they were born for this, were two, singing, gigantic blue whales.

In the sky.

As in _flying. _

He stared just _stared_ as the huge animals sung to each other again across the open expanse of blue, deep haunting melodies that sent chills up his skin, up his spine, through his heart as the spun just dozens of feet away. He struggled to form words, to form a logical, sound reason for the way the huge animals pulled their fins down and sent themselves flying higher, chanting as they do so, and through the clouds that were at his level this high up on the cliff. One of them twirled, a long slow and gorgeous barrel-roll, before it pushed its way up higher through the thin air with the other close on its tail. They were still singing, flying, and the sounds were huge and humbling as they flew away from the cliff and into more open sky away.

Bruce glanced down at the cliff beneath his feet, at the island he was standing on, and couldn't think of anything that could explain why the ground and cliffs branching off from this one in the distance were floating with no land underneath. He couldn't think of a reason why the ground would suddenly disappear and leave the rest floating in mid-air and why these Blue-Whales seemed to have the same disregard to gravity as the land beneath his feet.

He was on a _floating island_ with rocks that hovered in mid-air off the cliff edge and waterfalls that tipped over the side of the cliff and down, down, down to who-knows what in the sky below and trees with white bark and glowing blue leaves and flying whales.

His name was Bruce Banner, he was a doctor (for what?), he was forty years old, he knew many things about the world and things in it but nothing else about himself, and he was on a floating island with flying whales and blue trees and he was not on Earth anymore

* * *

**AN: How's it going?**

The following story is a study in character, description, and the element of fiction Monomyth—or as some of you may know it as 'The Hero's Journey'. Inspired by the actual game Journey which also alludes to the style of writing and my own personal gameplay experience, elements have been taken from the spectacular video-game. However, besides the ultimate goal of reaching the 'Mountain' and the same study in the Monomyth, there is little the same between the two stories. The storyline, plots, and world are my own. Anything else similar to the game is completely unintentional, (or completely on purpose as a salute to the games itself, ie. Natasha and Bruce's Cloaks.) **This story will update weekly on Sundays and be approximately 9 chapters of story-length content.** I do apologize for this chapter being so short, but, trust me, improvements in length are coming.

**Warnings**: Violence, implied major-character death, minimal swearing, and no scrabble shall be played (if you know what I mean.) Adventure/friendship/mystery based.

I'm just going to tell you now, lots of questions will be asked, and not a lot of answers are going to be given. The ones that do only will be answered at the very end. The story follows Bruce, with Natasha as the next main character, and the other Avengers/any other-human-freaking-beings will not make a physical appearance. As for the Hulk, I'm not sure yet. We shall see.

Do enjoy. I did.

*salutes*

_-Fleet_


	2. Confluence

Bruce stood stock still at the edge of the cliff. His cloak whipped around his feet and flying blue whales were soaring across a distant blue sky but he just stood there because _how. _The trees around him were bright white and a vibrant aqua blue with petals like wisps of smoke and the ground beneath him dipped jaggedly below his line of sight until there was nothing but air beneath it and _those whales were flying._

He could barely wrap his head around it, much less try to put an explanation to it.

Before he could truly begin to make any process in that line of thought however, there was a breath of sound behind him of trees and rustling bushes parting for a body. He whirled around, something in the back of his mind beginning to hum to life, a disturbance, a growl, and that was almost as frightening as the possibility of being… _dead _or any other explanation for floating islands and flying whales. There was a glimmer of dark red in the trees, vibrant blues and soft greens and deep reds all battling for his attention, before a hand snaked out from a wiry brush and pushed away a branch he had dashed through just a minute ago himself. Instantly, he could feel himself tense up although he didn't know why other than the fact that it could be _anyone_ and his hand curling into fists and his jaw snapped shut in preparation to flee.

A woman stepped out of the foliage, red-hair, red-cloak, red, red, everywhere the same bright color as blood and he took a half a step back, dangerously close to the cliff edge now. She was small and cautious, bearing an angular face framed with curly red hair just a little past her shoulders with a short of raggedy that suggested that she had been here in this place for a long while. Very slowly, she pushed her way out of the trees with cautious, sharp green eyes flicking over him. There was a trace of something on her face, something similar to the twisted sort of relief and hesitation and guard that he was feeling himself right now, before it was gone, lost in the cool way she assessed him. She was dressed like him, human like him, and somehow he was incredibly relieved to see her—another person—out here in this place where nothing made sense, even if her face brought nothing to mind. She obviously sensed his weariness, raising her hands from beneath her cloak to show that she had nothing in them; the universal sign of a friendly.

Bruce kept waiting for her to say something, something, _anything, _but all she did was slowly edge forward while steadily meeting his eyes, not saying a word, and it was only making him more nervous, more on edge, wanting to take another step back but corned by the threat of falling forever for who knows how long. Another two steps went by and he just couldn't take the silence any longer and held up a hand abruptly, palm out and pulling his other arm back defensively. "Stop," he said, voice rough from misuse and it was more of a plead than an actual command. Thankfully, the woman stopped instantly, freezing, but her face gave nothing away as to why she even bothered to listen.

They stared at each other, neither moving, both waiting for the other to act, before Bruce realized that she was really honestly not going to move. He cleared his throat, surprised, so it was clearer when he spoke again. "Who are you?" He asked finally, dropping his hand back to his side. "Where are we?"

There was something that changed in the woman's posture, the way her shoulders slumped ever so slightly and her eyes closed just a little longer than a blink, something distressed, disappointed in her just for a second. Then it was gone, replaced by something, a posture, that he could tell was supposed to be unthreatening. She started to lower one arm and Bruce tensed, muscles in his leg coiling and ready to run, but she obviously noticed and froze again, forming the slightly lowered hand into the previously calming 'I'm unarmed' form before continuing. She lowered her hand down, painfully slowly, toward her own neck. Meeting his eyes the entire time, the woman carefully taped her neck with the pads of her fingers just on the jut on her throat that marked the voice-box.

It took a second for him to figure out what she meant and when he did a mix of disappointment and frustration washed over him. He was not the only flawed one here.

"…you can't speak," Bruce realized, eyes darting up from her hand back to her eyes.

She nodded, two jerks of her head.

"Can you sign then?" He asked and he knew he could read it, knew he had dealt with people who couldn't hear or speak and sign instead even if he couldn't remember their faces or their names or the circumstances he met them in.

The woman hesitated, obviously thinking hard, before nodding slowly. She lifted the hand that had been hovering over her throat, thinking. Suddenly her hand jerked violently, like it had been about to move, about to start, before suddenly thinking better about it. A resigned look passed over her face. She turned back to him and shook her head, looking apologetic.

"You can't?" He asked, frustrated and confused by her sudden change.

She nodded.

"But—you _can_ but you just won't?"

The woman shook her head again, raising her hand and twisting it around as if she was taking his words and flipping them.

"You want to but you can't?" Bruce tried next, mostly guessing.

The woman nodded, more vigorous this time, head bobbing rapidly.

"Why not?"

The woman shook her head, obviously frustrated as well, before a sudden glint appeared in her eyes. She pointed at him, tapped her own temple, and then gestured back to herself, asking something similar to _'you know me' _or _'your memory' _or _'you remember me?'_

Bruce shook his head. "No. I don't—I can't—I don't know you." He wondered if it was wise to tell her that, or what he said next, but he couldn't really bring himself to stop. "I don't remember anything."

She pointed at him, nodding vigorously, before turning both her hands back to her own chest, pointing at herself before back to her throat and shaking her head.

"So I can't remember," he clarified, "and you can't speak. Or sign, for some reason. It was the same thing? What about writing? Can you write?"

The woman first nodded at his earlier statement, before shaking her head. Okay, great. So he was on a floating island with flying whales and blue trees with his own memories lost to him and a woman who couldn't speak or sign or even _write _for some reason. "But you can understand me?" He pressed. "Can you read?"

The woman nodded tersely, pursing her lips, before starting to repeat the gestures she had made before, but Bruce cut her off with a short nod. "Want to but can't," he muttered. "Got it. I don't understand _why_ though. What's stopping you?"

He sort of half realized he was getting off track, getting absorbed into a problem he couldn't resist, that he should be moving on if this woman couldn't help him with his problem. He should be pressing her with questions, trying to get her to answer the ones she'd been avoiding instead of digging deeper into the problem presented to him, but he couldn't stop. He was curious. He didn't know and wanted to know, making the problem almost irresistible as a puzzle, a challenge.

The woman paused, clearly thinking, before turning and gazing around the clearing and holding up a hand in a _'wait a second'_ gesture. She seemed to spot something in the bushes behind them, walking quickly over and stopping down, the red-cloak gathering on the ground as she did so, before she snatched a strange looking and almost translucent white flower with a bell-like petal off the ground. She turned, facing towards Bruce, before taking two hesitant (looking at him for approval) steps forward so he could see well. Next, she gripped the bell-like white flower, meeting his eyes for a second, before snapping the bell off the stem with a piercing _crack!_

Bruce took a step back in surprise at the loud noise, almost falling as his foot scraped at the very edge of the cliff. He whirled around, checking his spot, before quickly turning back to the woman as the flower burst and sent a cloud of sparkling dust flying, glittering in the light of the day. Bruce stared at the glimmering dust as it coated over the woman's extended arm and hand and easily feeling her expectant gaze on him as he watched.

The message was very clear.

"Magic?" He asked, a dread drawing up from somewhere within in, looking up.

And of course, the woman, looking awfully smug with herself, nodded.

**-/\-  
-JOURNEY-  
-**_Confluence_**-  
****-/-\-**

"That's impossible," he said quickly, even as he gathered his thoughts, shaking his head. "No—that's—just—no." He laughed and it was a short and nervous sound, giving her a long searching look with slow shakes of his head. "No. Do you mean the _flower_ caused it?"

The woman crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at him, shaking her head as she lifted a finger and pointed to the still visible but shadowy figures of the retreating (and flying) whales. There were barely visible silhouettes now, voices small hums that rode of on the win but the point had been made.

"Okay, fair point," he admitted after a long pause, "but that's still—I mean—there has to be a reasonable—_logical_—explanation—?"

She stared at him, perfectly arched eyebrow completely unmoved by his halting searching for answers with a, _please, do try to create an explanation for flying whales and floating islands, I would like to hear this one, _expression on her face. Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing, trying to wrap his mind around what she had just (assumedly) told him.

"Okay," he said, after another long moment of struggling (and failing) to come up with anything scientifically sound, "I'm going to take initiative and assume you're not clinically insane and go with your theory _mostly_ because I really can't deal with trying to figure out the science behind all," he waved his hand to the water fall careening over the edge of the island and to oblivion beyond, "_this."_

The woman gave him a jerk of her hands, flourishing and slow as if telling him to continue. He watched her a moment, not really sure what to do with all this, before sighing. "Who are you?" he asked finally.

She pointed at him, before using the same hand to tap her temple three times, and then gestured back towards herself.

"I don't know you," he corrected for the second time that day. "Sorry, I'm quite sure I don't. Either you're confusing me for someone else, or something up _here," _he jerked his hand towards his head, "is malfunctioning, because I can't remember who you are or who _I _am or what this place is."

The woman gave a sad sort of barely-there smile before tapping _herself_ on her chest, then her temple, and then pointing back to him.

"But you remember me," he confirms, and she nodded. "Were we friends?"

She hesitated, before giving a slow sort of nod and a terse smile, balancing one hand higher than the other to her sides before switching them in a _more or less_ gesture.

"Sorry," he gave a sort of weary smile, something shifting inside his chest, "that really—_it_—" he switched questions abruptly, unable to finish that one, absently rubbing at the marks along his wrist, "do you know where we are?"

The woman gave a small shrug, like she'd like to add more but knew she couldn't really without confusing him. He appreciated the gesture, he really did, but honestly he really didn't like where this was going and for all he knew this woman could be lying to him or trying to—

"Listen," he said, after a moment, "you say you know me and I know you—but I don't. I'm sorry to disappoint but I really don't. It's just—it's just this whole thing is… _messed up_. I'm half expecting to wake up anytime now or—or—or for God himself to step down from the clouds and send me on either way and I just really would like to find some answers, maybe civilization, and maybe a person who can actually speak so I can figure out what's going on. I appreciate you…" his eyes flickered to the dagger he can now see attached to the belt under her cloak, "…not hurting me or murdering me or something along those lines and—but—I really have to get somewhere where whales aren't flying, maybe a hospital, and if you'd like to tag along, maybe get your voice checked out, that would be—"

What happened next went by so quickly he didn't even truly register it until his two feet were planted back solidly on the ground. There was a sudden _WHOOSH_ of the trees as a powerful wind washed over it, leaves whistling high pitched melodies that washed into a roar even as Bruce turned and half ducked as a large whale swooped over the treetops dangerously low. Its large tail nearly knocked a tree over, bending some thick branches dangerously low as it hummed and sent the entire ground vibrating, but Bruce barely noticed, foot slipping backwards on the edge of the cliff, whirling around and lifting his head to face the whale and his own soon to be grave as it sped over the cliff to join its two fleeing partners _in none other than_—

And his feet slipped grappling for purchase on nothing and he remembered the cliff behind him, the drop with no bottom below, as he began to fall with arms that pinwheeled and he fought for balance on the rocky edge slick with dew from the waterfall and he tipped forward, falling as a small hand wrapped around his arm.

_—the distance. _

Over trees and gaps and floating islands and no sun in sight in the far, far distance laid a mountain glowing against a white blue sky. The whale swooped and dove and sang and danced, a deep haunting melody that was returned almost instantly by other chimes in the abyss, all heading the same direction in masses towards the mountain—the mountain that towered over the rest of the land and glimmered a bright, snowy, _white_.

And then those hands were jerking him back out of the picture, pulling him off the edge he was falling and to solid ground.

The woman pulled them both back, both hands securely clamping around his wrist, and they stumbled back several yards from the edge and onto the grassy ground. She looked furious, an icy sort of anger that screamed, _you idiot, there was a _cliff_ behind you, what the hell were you trying to accomplish?_ and she flipped his left arm over none too gently, one hand in vice-grip on his wrist and the other lining up to dig her nails into the three healing scratches all the way down his arm.

They fit perfectly—her nails—tracing in a lightly heated fashion across the scars after showing him initially how they fit so perfectly to the width of the scratches themselves. She shoved his arm back towards him and he nearly stumbled at the force; flinching at her ferocity of her gaze. Bruce glanced hesitantly back down at the scratches, now recognizing them to be human, recognizing them now to be some wild scratch of a desperate lunge that hadn't been quite made.

The woman glared at him, hitting her chest hard with two fingers, tapping her temple once, before jerking her hand back at him—a certain sort of, '_I. Know. _You._' _

"Okay," Bruce said, rather softly, rubbing the tingling skin of his arm, "okay, fine. I get it. You know me. You know. Fine. You're in charge. What happens now?"

**_/-**_Confluence_**-\_**

_'What happens now?_' turned out to be walking along the edge of the floating island, off in the direction the two whales had flown earlier in relative silence after she had grabbed his arm and began pulling them both in that direction. They passed another flying whale (or, rather, it passed them), flying overhead, as well as other strange things—floating rocks, rivers with pale-blue waters, huge birds with blue feathers that he could only describe roughly to be a Griffin. The red woman had been silent, letting go of his arm and taking the lead, much to his not-surprise.

They been walking for about an hour when Bruce dared to speak again, somewhat put off by her previous ferocity and the proof that, _yes_, he did know her, somehow, lost in the back of his mind by apparent magic.

"Where are we going?" He asked, almost tentatively, spinning around to catch one last look at a tree with limbs that curled and withered on thin branches.

The woman lifted a hand, not looking back at him, pointing to a huge mountain off in the distance, covered in trees and clouds. Bruce winced, not liking where this was going, and jogged slightly to catch up to her quick pace. "What's up there?" he asked, almost not wanting to know.

The woman made a quick gesture with her hands, forming something that resembled a child-like drawing of a house—a triangle for a roof and a square for a body. "A house?"

The woman gave the barest of smiles, giving him a look and a twist of her hand before using both to expand upon it. _Not quite. Larger._

"A hospital?" Bruce guessed hopefully. "Civilization?"

She made a one with her hand, making the '_not quite _gesture again with her hand, before making a two and jerking her hand in a '_no.' _

"Hm," Bruce said, disappointed. He could've really used a quick Google-search on himself right now (and how he knew what Google was, and not when his own birthday was a frustrating loss to him). "A castle then?" He guessed next, mostly out of boredom, done with racking his brain, trying to remember her name, something to call her at least.

_Not quite. _The woman gestured again.

"A stronghold?"

_No._

"A temple?" He tried once more and the woman snapped once, pointing at him, telling him he'd guessed right. "Oh. Okay. What's at this temple?"

She mimed snapping the flower from earlier, throwing out her hands to mimic the little explosion of dust.

"Magic," he said dryly, and he waited for her nod before continuing with a sigh. "Great. Will it fix us?"

She shrugged loosely, red cloak rippling.

"So we're going to a magical temple ontop of a mountain," he clarified, "and you don't know if it will even help, even if the journey was probably going to be dangerous and act of climbing the actual mountain probably more so."

She snapped again, pointing. _Correct._

"Is there a road to this mountain? Or up the mountain, for that matter?"

She shook her head.

"Of course not."

**_/-**_Confluence_**-\_**

He decided to call her Red, mostly because there was a whole lot of it on her between the cloak and her curly hair, and he needed something to call her both in his head and during the rather pathetic sort of 'conversations' they have. Ontop of that, when he asked what to call her earlier, she had merely shrugged, obviously deciding her name was too complicated to try and phonetically spell it out to him with pictures. He hadn't been feeling particularly creative at the time either.

They walked together for quite a while, hours, he thought, but wasn't sure. It was mostly in silence, and he still couldn't find the sun or any other means of tracking time. He was mostly just judging how much time had passed based on the scratches on his arms and how they'd been (very) slowly healing over as they walked on with the occasional break. He started to figure out more about himself and Red as they moved along, hesitantly starting to think about how likely the cause of his loss of memory to truly be magic. He was at the point of almost believing it—he could remember all the elements of the periodic table, mass and atomic numbers as well, but not the color of his own eyes. It just didn't make _sense. _Red could understand him and make gestures, but she couldn't write or sign or even use a system they tried to develop with numbers and letters. She couldn't _communicate _and he couldn't _remember_ and he couldn't think of anything that would cause something that specific.

Besides magic.

His name was Bruce Banner, he was a doctor (for what?), he was forty years old, he knew many things about the world and things in it but nothing else about himself, he was on a floating island with flying whales and blue trees and he was not on Earth anymore because (apparently) magic had brought him there.

They rested every hour or two, but he really couldn't tell the distance between each one because, again, he couldn't find the sun. The sky had been a fairly consistent pale blue, no darker or lighter than it had been when he'd fist woken up and he pointed this out to Red at one point. She just shook her red head, pursing her lips and immediately ended the rest they had been taking, even if they had only just sat down less than a minute ago.

"Are we running from something?" He asked finally, after the fourteenth rest they'd taken and the pit of his stomach had started to ache and the scratches on his arms had turned a darker red color, starting to scab over.

Red nodded tersely, not looking back at him as she easily vaulted over a fallen (and blue) tree. Oh. Okay, then. That was… not good.

"What are we running from?" He asked.

Red tapped her wrist. _Time, _the gesture clearly said in salute to her imaginary watch, but it only raised more questions. He sighed, not bothering to ask another.

"I hope you realize running from time is going to be difficult," he told her, because, yes, running from something that continuously moved even when you didn't was pretty difficult.

_Done it before_, her longer shrug said.

Bruce raised an eyebrow in interest. "How?" He asked, stepping over the same log she had.

Red lifted an arm, pointing again towards the very distant mountain, just a shadow in the distance.

"The magic temple you spoke of earlier?" He asked, skeptical, and she nodded. "Why? Time would eventually catch up to there too, you know."

Red shook her head again, hesitating, before tapping her wrists in a _time_ again and jerking her hand over her shoulder.

"Back in time," he confirmed flatly, because why not? Floating island, flying whales, voiceless and forgotten people, what was time-travel in comparison?

Red shrugged again, jerking her hand. _Not quite. _She repeated the _back time, _before gesturing towards the both of them and pointing forward. So, then, time was going backwards, and they were moving forwards? He voiced as much as she nodded, if a bit hesitantly. He got a strange picture of them turning back a clock inside the temple before moving on to find another mountain to repeat the process. A race against time.

"How?" He asked next.

She made a circle with her hands.

"A circle reverses time?"

She mimed the magic sign again.

"A _magic_ circle," he deadpanned. "A magic time traveling circle. Okay."

The tips of Red's lips twitched to allow the faintest hint of amusement to flicker through her previously blank face. She made the _not quite _sign with her hands, and then makes a gesture as if she were opening a door.

"A door?" he asked, furrowing his brow. "A door that reverses time. A circle door. A portal?"

Red nodded vigorously, eyes bright as she looked at him. She then made a jabbing forward motion—pointing with her hand forward and suddenly, abruptly stopping as they broke through the forest and breached a hill.

"Forwards?" He asked, confused. "I thought it makes time go _back?_"

Red gave him a less than impressed look, reaching out and tugging him on the arm, pointing again straight in front of them. Bruce finally turned his head forward, following her gaze, and his eyes widened at the sight before them as they breached the hill.

The hill they had broken gave them a nice view over the grasslands before them. The forest had abruptly ended behind them, leaving plains with long swishing green grasses ahead. In the middle of this grassland was a huge fault in the land, cutting the island in half by over a hundred feet of a huge crevasse. The crack in the earth went on endlessly down the grasslands on either side, Bruce taking a few steps forwards to better see around the edges of the forest and try to find a way across, but all he could see on this side besides the forest and the grass was a huge tan building, intricately built of shapes and crumbling pillars a ways down the path—and there didn't seem to be any bridge across near it.

Red grabbed his arm by the edge of his cloak, pulling them down towards the crevasse and off towards the large temple.

"Why are we going down there?" He asked, letting himself be pulled. "If we have to go across, it'd be a better idea to start walking along the edge for a place narrow enough to jump."

Red shook her head, still tugging them off towards the building, not bothering to try and explain. Bruce sighed, reaching to push down his growing agitation. Hopefully, _hopefully, _whatever they were looking for wasn't too far away. He didn't know if he could take walking in what had mostly been silence and unanswered questions much longer. Nothing made sense and it was _frustrating _him. He wanted to understand, to make progress, and all it felt like was walking in inevitable circles away from the sun.

It didn't take long to reach the foot of the crumbling pillars, of what looked so ancient of a temple, and before long Bruce and his aide were walking through the shadows of giants. The pillars were so much taller up close, a faded cream and white cracked with age and worn with wind. Some of them were half broken, their branches littered before them on the dusty sand ground, while others were completely crumbled or lying sideways, as if they had seen battle and just decided to quietly lie down and give up. It looked as if others weren't that far away from the same thing, Bruce hesitating as Red vaulted over a sideways collapsed pillar, afraid that if he touched the worn surface it would just crumble apart under his hand and fade away into the breeze. But it didn't and Bruce moved on, following the woman towards what looked to be the mostly intact temple.

It was much cooler inside than the out and despite the cloak Bruce suddenly felt cold, feeling the need to reach for something, to fiddle with them, just to distract himself from the eerie feeling that he was invading some sacred grounds. The floors shone like a golden marble and the walls were high and half cloaked by shadows. The only sign of disarray was a fountain just short of the tall entrance, a little out of place with a slightly more concrete look like the pillars outside instead of the darker gold marble that built the temple. It was dry and cracked and it was there they both stopped, Red pacing around the circular basin once, head moving up and down as if she were looking for something. Water, a drink, maybe.

"I think you'll have to look other places for water," Bruce said dryly, as the woman circled the dry fountain once. She gave him a sharp look in return, almost angry, and he sighed to avert his gaze.

"What are we doing here?" he asked, pressing not for the first time, running his eyes over the walls, and something twisted inside him as he noticed dark stains of gray like from a fire or explosion licking the smooth walls. "I mean, what are we _really _doing here, Red?" He felt tired suddenly, sounded tired, even as the woman paced the fountain looking increasingly agitated, like a feline pacing with snowballing fervor as it continued to rediscover its own cage. "We've been walking for _hours—_all that's left of this place, whatever happened, is just a few crumbling pillars and a broken fountain that obviously hasn't worked for years."

There was no response, just like there hadn't been this entire time, and Bruce drag a hand over his eyes, over his face before clasping his hands together before his mouth and just watching with tired eyes. "Red," he said. "Red. _Red—"_

And just like that she turned on him, a whirl of scarlet and pale white. She was instantly just two inches from him, eyes hard and finger raised and pointed at him in a silent accusation with shoulders that heaved in what he finally recognized as anger and desperation and fear_. You, _her eyes and point said, before jerking back her hand towards her own temple and away with a sharp jerk, _know nothing._

_Nothing._

There was a long pause and, if anything, Bruce's weariness grew only worse. "You think I don't know that?" he asked, and _god _he sounded tired and so painfully confused.

Red's eyes didn't soften and Bruce wasn't surprised. She stared up at him and he stared back and—

—her eyes flickered off to the left and softened in what could've been anything from surprise to just plain alertness, spotting something his back was to. Bruce turned, following her gaze along the shadowy ceiling because the tension between them had been so palpable a few seconds ago so why, _what_ could have—

—a reflection of a shattered rainbow gleamed from its wavering spot on one of the structural pillars against the opening to the temple. It was small, barely noticeable against the gold, but it was bright enough and shaky enough that even he knew exactly what was causing it. Bruce turned as Red did, tracing the lines of sunset sunbeams that fell through the temple's windows (_when had the sky grown so dark, when had the invisible sun started setting?) _until they landed upon one of the top layers of the fountain and illuminated a single drop of pristine water.

He looked at Red who looked in turn so stuck that it was almost painful to see her rush forward, stepping gracefully over the small fountain wall and placing a foot on its ridges to boost herself up the few inches she needed to be on eyelevel with the single drop. Bruce moved forward, cloak scraping the edges of the concrete, as she gently reached out and swept a nail gently under the surface of the drop to catch it on her finger. Stepping down, Red shielded her hand with the other as if the sunlight might simply evaporate the perfect drop on her finger and very carefully stepped over the wall again and onto marble floors.

Bruce stared down at the drop and Red slowly lowered her second hand so he could see.

Well.

"I don't think there's enough for two," he said dryly.

**_/-**_Confluence_**-\_**

They moved deeper into the temple. The place was increasingly expansive and more and more untouched as they moved away from the entrance, looking less and less like a massive battle with fire and earth had taken place. They moved down open walkways canvased by shaded ceilings and bracketed by pillars and cloaked in the golden light from a setting sun he still couldn't see. They passed through more marble halls with open walls and pillars on his left to face the mountain, ever closer. Red dutifully guarded the drop of water in her palm and Bruce just allowed himself to follow, taking in the sights. If he wasn't so sure he was dead, he might have appreciated the beauty a little more. But then again, even if he was dead, there wasn't much for him to remember to mourn.

Even so. The setting, the golden halls and bursts of black stains on walls peaked his interest.

"What happened here?" he asked, as they moved along down an open walkway towards another building alongside the crevasse. Outside, he could see more easily splintered trees and crumbled pillars. Red shrugged, a very small movement that showed her protection for the raindrop in her hand. "You don't know?" he confirmed, "or is it just too complicated of a story to tell."

_The first one, _Red's single finger held up said.

"So you're not from around here either then," Bruce sighed. "Though I supposed I could be. I don't know."

Red, momentarily drawn from her task, turned to give him a very long and meaningful look before shaking her head. _I'm not. _Or _You're not. _One of the two. Bruce didn't bother confirming and so they moved further down the hallway in silence.

Finally, they reached the other building, the inside of this one much smaller, though still drawn in dramatic shadows with the wall to their left showing nothing but the massive ravine and the mountain in the distance beyond pillars and stairs. Red picked up the pace, obviously concerned with the small amount of fading in her hand, practically jogging the last few steps across the marble flooring in skipping bursts towards the far end of the room where golden bricks were perfectly illuminated by the sun. Bruce followed at a slower pace, hands tucked into the pockets of his pants, watching her leap nimbly up the few steps and slow. She kneeled and Bruce slowly his made his way up behind her, unable to see what she was doing to the wall with her back to him. By the time he'd caught up she'd already stood and her hand which had previously held the water brushed her hair back as she stepped backwards.

Bruce stopped at her side, momentarily her eyes furiously examine the wall, before the sound of shifting stone caught his attention, head snapping to find the source of the heavy grating sound. The sounds stopped the instant he looked, but instead of a secret passageway or an underground passage, upon several bricks in the middle of the wall began to glow. Cursive writing flew in a golden light flew across the wall, starting at one end of the room and flying at a lightning speed to the next. He took a step back, half out of surprise, before his eyes adjusted to the brightness and he read,

_Stat sua cuique dies. _

Over and over and over again in a tiny glowing cursive that lit up around the room, all four walls, filling up every single brick and growing brighter and brighter and brighter and brighter—

The light died and the room suddenly seemed all the less bright.

And maybe it wasn't the dark, Bruce thought, that people were afraid of. Maybe they were just afraid of the absence of light.

* * *

**True dat, Bruce. True dat.**

**UP AND COMING: **Crossing of the Threshold.

**IN RESPONSE TO YOUR REVIEWS**

To **Thisisnataliexd**: ^^ Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying it, even if that was such a short introduction. Thank you very much for your review, and I hope you liked this one as well!

To **Red Tigress:** Less than three. :3 Long time no see! Thanks for the encouraging words! I'm hoping to improve a lot on description and setting this time around. And I agree! Journey's such a fantastic game- I could play it a thousand times over and never leave uninspired. :') And thank you for your correction! I hadn't noticed- I only thought that Fanfiction had kinda done an AO3 tag thing to allow you to list all appearing characters, but it for some reason would't list Bruce no matter what I did. Hopefully it should remain fixed. Thank you for your review, and I hope you enjoyed!

To le **UnDetectedWriter:** Ah, so we meet again. :D I'm so glad I could snag your attention for this story as well- thank you for your compliments! And blue whales, yes. What is a magical floating island without flying whales? Pfft, not a legit one, obviously. Thank you so much for your review, and I hope you liked it!

***salutes***

_-Fleet_


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